Sarmatism as Europe’s founding myth

“More and more phenomena are assuming a political dimension, and the surrounding world of politics is beginning to overwhelm us. Despite its grounding in rationality, and despite eff orts to adapt it to the changing forms of social life, it systematically yields to derealisation. The key notions in this area, such as liberty, equality, democracy, raison d’état, revolution, counter-revolution, are becoming increasingly disconnected, receive variegated explanations and interpretations in political practice, are readily subject to manipulation.” Cultural myth expresses a collective, emotionally charged belief in the veracity of a conceptual content, a memory, and simultaneously provides a model, a set of rules for social behaviour. Leszek Kołakowski draws attention to the ubiquity of mythological thinking in contemporary culture in which it addresses the universal need to fi nd meaning and continuity in the world and its values. Myth is then a particular mode of perception, cognition, and understanding of reality, part of man’s mentality, his national and cultural identity.